Nigh v. Koons Buick Pontiac Gmc, Inc.

• Decision Date: 21 February 2007
• Docket Number: No. 05-2059.,05-2059.
• Citation: 478 F.3d 183
• Parties: Bradley NIGH, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. KOONS BUICK PONTIAC GMC, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellant, and Household Automotive Finance Corporation, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

478 F.3d 183

Bradley NIGH, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. KOONS BUICK PONTIAC GMC, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellant, and Household Automotive Finance Corporation, Defendant.

No. 05-2059.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: November 30, 2006.

Decided: February 21, 2007.

ARGUED: Jack David Lapidus, Macleay, Lynch, Gregg & Lynch, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Alexander Hugo Blankingship, III, Blankingship & Associates, P.C., Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee.

ON BRIEF: Arthur M. Schwartzstein, McLean, Virginia, for Appellant. Thomas B. Christiano, Blankingship & Associates, P.C., Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee.

Before WILKINS, Chief Judge, and WILLIAMS and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed in part; vacated and remanded in part by published opinion. Judge GREGORY wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge WILKINS and Judge WILLIAMS Joined.

OPINION

GREGORY, Circuit Judge:

Koons Buick Pontiac GMC, Inc., appeals a district court order commanding Koons to pay Bradley Nigh $85,083.60 in attorneys' fees incurred in protracted litigation between the two parties. Nigh was successful at trial and before us on appeal, but he lost a dispute regarding a statutory damage cap when Koons appealed our ruling to the Supreme Court. Koons contends that Nigh no longer deserves costs or attorneys' fees, or at least, does not deserve fees for the work done in connection with the Supreme Court appeal and subsequent proceedings.

Nigh filed suit against Koons in October 2000, alleging conversion, breach of contract, fraud, and violations of the Federal Odometer Act, Truth In Lending Act ("TILA"), and Virginia Consumer Protection Act ("VCPA"). The district court dismissed most of Nigh's claims on motion for summary judgment, but a jury ultimately returned a verdict for Nigh under the TILA and the VCPA. Koons appealed its liability and the amount of damages, costs, and attorneys' fees awarded to Nigh. Nigh cross-appealed, arguing that the district court erroneously dismissed two of his claims on summary judgment. We affirmed the district court's judgment in all respects, Nigh v. Koons Buick Pontiac GMC, Inc., 319 F.3d 119, 129 (4th Cir. 2003), and awarded Nigh an additional $11,840 in attorneys' fees for work performed on the appeal.

Koons appealed to the Supreme Court, which reviewed only the amount of damages awarded under the TILA. The Court agreed with Koons that the TILA capped Nigh's damages, then $24,192, at $1,000. Koons Buick Pontiac GMC, Inc. v. Nigh, 543 U.S. 50, 64, 125 S.Ct. 460, 160 L.Ed.2d 389 (2004). The Court remanded the case to us, and we to the district court. Koons promptly petitioned us for rehearing, noting that we failed to address the issue of attorneys' fees in our remand order. Over Nigh's objection, we granted the petition, vacated all prior awards of attorneys' fees, and remanded for a new determination of fees as well.

On remand, the district court reinstated the attorneys' fees awarded for work done up to and including the initial appeal to this Court. Nigh v. Koons Buick Pontiac GMC, Inc., 384 F.Supp.2d 915, 917 (E.D.Va.2005). The court further awarded Nigh $33,644 for the work done in connection with the Supreme Court appeal, $4,564.50 for work on remand to this Court, and $5,906 for work before the district court in connection with the motion on which the court was then ruling. Id. The court also reaffirmed its initial award to Nigh of $3,590 in costs. Id. In total, Koons was ordered to pay Nigh $85,083.60. Id. at 925.

I.

The TILA requires that a defendant pay costs and reasonable attorneys' fees to any person who brings a "successful action" to enforce liability under the TILA against that defendant. See 15 U.S.C. § 1640(a)(3) (2000).¹ The language is imperative: costs and reasonable fees must be awarded to a plaintiff who brings a successful action. The only variable in the calculation is the amount of attorneys' fees, the determination of which is left to the discretion of the district court with the stipulation that the fees be reasonable. See de Jesus v. Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, 918 F.2d 232, 233 (1st Cir.1990); see also Doe v. Chao, 435 F.3d 492, 503 (4th Cir.2006) (discussing the fee-shifting provision of the federal Privacy Act). In this case, Nigh brought a successful action, so Koons must pay him costs and reasonable attorneys' fees.

As it is used in § 1640(a)(3), action encompasses each stage of Nigh's litigation, including the Supreme Court appeal and all the proceedings that followed. The TILA does not define action, but its context makes its meaning plain: an action is a lawsuit. When dealing with similar language in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, we acknowledged that, in its usual sense, action is synonymous with "a suit brought in a court." Chris v. Tenet, 221 F.3d 648, 652 (4th Cir.2000) (citing Black's Law Dictionary 26 (deluxe 5th ed.1979)). It has been, apparently, since at least 1483. See Oxford English Dictionary 128 (2d ed.1989) (defining action as `A legal process or suit'). An action constitutes more than an individual appearance before one particular tribunal. In ordinary usage, an action—a civil action, at least—begins with the filing of a complaint and ends when no party may any longer obtain review of the final disposition of the case, encompassing all steps necessary in between. We casually equate action with suit quite often; we did so earlier in this very litigation. Describing the initiation of the lawsuit, but also referring to the legal dispute before us at the time, we said: "Nigh, claiming that Koons Buick defrauded him, brought this action under the statutory authority of the TILA. . . ." Nigh, 319 F.3d at 123. This common understanding of action is consistent with § 1640(a)(3), and we need look no further for the word's import, see United States v. Ron Pair Enters., Inc., 489 U.S. 235, 240-41, 109 S.Ct. 1026, 103 L.Ed.2d 290 (1989).

Defining action in this way means it is possible for a TILA plaintiff to obtain attorneys' fees for a stage of the litigation at which she does not prevail. If a plaintiff does not prevail before the district court, but later is determined to have successfully demonstrated a defendant's liability, her action is successful, and she may recover fees for work done at the trial level. See, e.g., Gibson v. LTD, Inc., 434 F.3d 275, 286 (4th Cir.2006) ("Because Gibson has been successful on three TILA claims, not just the two found by the district court, we vacate the district court's award of attorneys fees and remand to permit the court to reassess its award in view of these changed circumstances."). Conversely, if an appellate court overturns a district court's finding of liability under the TILA, the plaintiff's action is not successful, and she is not entitled to fees for either stage of the litigation.

In this case, Nigh's action was successful. True, many of the claims he originally brought were dismissed, but a jury found Koons liable to Nigh under the TILA, and its finding has not been upset by any court since. Nigh recovered not a trifle, but the maximum amount permissible under the statute. Simply put, Nigh is the prevailing party. See Buckhannon Bd. and Care Home, Inc. v. W. Va. Dep't of Health and Human Res., 532 U.S. 598, 603-04, 121 S.Ct. 1835, 149 L.Ed.2d 855 (2001); Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U.S. 103, 112-13, 113 S.Ct. 566, 121 L.Ed.2d 494 (1992); Griggs v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 385 F.3d 440, 454 (4th Cir. 2004). The TILA does not award fees and costs to prevailing parties, of course. At least, it does not do so explicitly. Rather, the act awards fees and costs to victims of TILA violations who bring successful actions against the violators. § 1640(a)(3). But there is little reason to suppose that a successful action is anything more or less than an action brought by a prevailing party. See Dechert v. Cadle Co., 441 F.3d 474, 476 (7th Cir.2006); see also Ruckelshaus v. Sierra Club, 463 U.S. 680, 701 & n. 12, 103 S.Ct. 3274, 77 L.Ed.2d 938 (1983) (grouping statutes that award fees for "successful actions" together with statutes that award fees to "prevailing" or "substantially prevailing" parties). Just as a plaintiff can prevail when only one of his claims succeeds, so his action can succeed when only one of its constituent claims prevails. Nigh's action, then, was successful. Even so, Nigh is not necessarily entitled to have all his litigation expenses reimbursed. He is owed only costs and reasonable attorneys' fees.²

II.

Costs are simple enough. In August 2003, after we issued our first opinion in this case, the district court awarded Nigh $3,590 in costs. Following the Supreme Court proceedings, we granted Koons's petition for rehearing regarding attorneys' fees and costs, vacated the fee awards, and remanded the case to the district court for a reassessment of fees. We did not vacate the award of costs. At Koons's behest, the district court reconsidered the award anyway, but decided to reaffirm it. Nigh, 384 F.Supp.2d at 917. Koons now asks us to vacate (or at least substantially reduce) the award, which we will not do. Koons supplies no reason for us to believe the district court flubbed its calculation of costs in the first instance, and nothing about the succeeding litigation has changed the nature of the trial or initial appeal such that Nigh should no longer be entitled to litigation costs for those proceedings. He brought a successful TILA action and therefore is entitled to costs. See § 1640(a)(3). The district court's award of $3,590 in costs is affirmed.

III.

The question of reasonable fees is more complicated. As a preliminary matter, we affirm the reinstatement of $11,840 for attorneys' fees amassed during the initial Fourth Circuit appeal. Despite Koons's Supreme Court success in the damage-cap dispute, the Fourth Circuit fee award remains reasonable. We awarded Nigh only about eighty-one percent of the fees he sought for the Fourth Circuit work because...